Against All Odds

 It was about a year ago that I read and reviewed my first Richard Danzig novel, The Collectors. It was the third in a series of novels about Chance Cormac, a Brooklyn attorney. Against All Odds is the fourth book in the series and I thought it was a better read than the prior one. There were three main story lines in this novel. One had to do with Chance’s choice to confront a very dangerous woman who was the head of a corrupt triad group based in Hong Kong. It was a story that was a sequel to The Collectors, and once again, it showed Chance’s willingness to put his life at risk in order to help his friends and to right a wrong.

The second storyline had to do with the ICE arrest of Dr. Lyla Abda. She was born in Syria where she overcame the most difficult circumstances at home in her country and win scholarships to a university. Her successful scholarship next won her admission to a medical school in London. After medical school, she began working on various projects to feed impoverished and malnourished refugees in various locations in the world. She ended up writing a paper about malnourishment that was published in a medical journal. She was then invited to do research on that subject at Yale. Based on the misinterpretation of that research paper, in the US, she was charged as being a terrorist. When she was ordered to be released from custody, the government shipped her off to a notorious prison in El Salvadore. Chance took on that case which ended up leading to him getting shot in the chest while delivering a public challenge to the ICE operation. He barely survived. You’ll have to read the book to learn about the resolution of this matter.

The third story line was the continuation of Chance’s troubled personal life. He had a relationship with Sally that he was very certain would lead to marriage. As a younger woman, Sally had a daughter via IVF from a sperm donor. The pregnancy resulted in the birth of Melody who turned out to be a bright and talented student and athlete. Chance loved both Sally and Melody. When Melody was in high school, they investigated who the sperm donor might have been and learned that it was a man named James, a pro tennis player who had briefly played on the pro circuit, but who had retired to become a tennis teacher. He then became Melody’s coach, and she loved the attention of both men. James became a part of the family, and Chance felt quite threatened by is love for the two women. But James had a serious and eventually fatal diagnosis of cancer, and Sally decided that the father of her child deserved to have a true family experience with what a short life he had left, and she agreed to marry him. Chance was incredibly wounded by the experience, and he exited himself from the family although his live for Sally and Melody was unchanged. As James’ disease progressed to its fatal conclusion, Melody became severely depressed and withdrawn from school and her tennis activities. The resolution of those problems was most touching and brought this novel to an end.

I enjoyed the author’s three stories, and I look forward to see what will happen with Chance’s personal life, as well as learning what important social issues he chooses to write about.